The Princess Blog

Rebel Rose  is the first book in a new series of official fanfiction  called The Queen's Council , which is about the Disney Princesses growing into queens  of historically accurate kingdoms  that incorporate their fictional movies as a jumping-off point. I generally avoid fanfiction, official or otherwise, but the concept behind this series sounded intriguing. After all, I recently completed a visual novel about Marie Antoinette , so it seemed like a logical next step to read about Belle experiencing the French Revolution as well. I found many similarities between the two stories. Both are about powerful women who are concerned about the wellbeing of their people and the way they are perceived. The Marie Antoinette visual novel in Dress Up! Time Princess  is a bit more educational because it doesn't try to blend a magical fairy tale into the darkly realistic setting. Still, I thought Rebel Rose  was pretty good overall for what it was trying to do. Before I go any further, I

I was going to conclude my Dress Up! Time Princess  reviews with Magic Lamp  since that was the last princess-related visual novel in the game, but it looks my addiction isn't over yet. While spending a few weeks idly collecting materials, I finally decided to play Gotham Memoirs, the last story I had left to complete, at least until the new one comes out the end of this month. Dress Up! Time Princess is celebrating  National Princess Day  today, an event that was original created to commemorate  the anniversary of the animated classic The Swan Princess , so here is a bonus review of the game as my way of joining the celebration. Initially, I was not eager to play Gotham Memoirs because of the lack of fairy tales or royalty, but I soon came to appreciate the glamorous fashions of the 1920s as well as the extremely dynamic story paths within the book that are far more intense than of the other stories. Gotham Memoirs is thematically divergent from the other visual novels in Dress

When I first saw an ad for the novel Tangled in Time: The Portal , I assumed that it was part of Disney's poorly rated Twisted Tales series  of alternate universe fanfic retellings  of their classic movies due to a portion of the title being shared with a popular Disney movie of the same name . Having little to interest in that series, I ignored the book entirely. Fortunately for me, it popped up again recently on a short list of princess book recommendations , and I realized that it had nothing to do with either Disney or the story of "Rapunzel."  Instead, it is a juvenile historical fiction that incorporates  time travel  to the days when the most famous Queen Elizabeth was still a princess. If I had known that from the beginning, I would have picked it up much sooner than I did. The duology is written by Kathryn Lasky , who is known for her other historical fiction series including Dear America  and The Royal Diaries . The book fell into my lap during a time that I st

For those of you who aren't savvy in the world of underground Hollywood, there is a studio called The Asylum , whose sole purpose is to create low-budget imitations of popular movies in the hopes that an old granny will forget her glasses while shopping and buy one on DVD for her grandkids, thinking it's that big blockbuster movie they're always yapping on about. When they set their sights on an upcoming release from a major studio, they rush to get their imitation out before or around the same time as the one they're mimicking so they can pretend that they came up with the idea first. The Twin Princesses of Legendale  was not produced by The Asylum, but it feels like it easily could have been. In actuality, it was produced by a modern toy company called MGA Entertainment , which is famous for making Bratz and  L.O.L. Surprise dolls. You would think that a toy company producing a low-budget movie would only do so with the intention of selling toys, but surprisingly, m

I was so pleased to be selected as an advance reader for Aya Ling's upcoming fantasy novel, Power Born . I've been a huge fan of Aya Ling ever since reading her Unfinished Fairy Tales series about a time traveler who ends up in the world of "Cinderella"  and falls for the prince.  Power Born  is a spin-off of Aya's  Reversed Retellings series  that takes place in the same world but does not follow the same format of gender-bending popular fairy tales. Instead, it focuses on what she does best by  challenging gender stereotypes in a unique fantasy setting. Similar to the Entwined Tales series  that Aya participated in  about a bumbling fairy godfather who messed up everyone's magical gifts, Power Born  is about two siblings whose magical gifts are accidentally reversed. Chiara, who was supposed to receive the gift of beauty, got the supernatural strength that her brother, Cristian, was supposed to receive instead. What follows is a Jessica Jones -inspired

When I first heard that Andrew Lloyd Webber was bringing yet another musical based on "Cinderella" into the world, I met the news with a healthy dose of skepticism . Now that there are two full songs from this upcoming show available online, I have never been more pleased to be wrong. Just a few days ago, Webber released the show-stopping number "Bad Cinderella" on both YouTube and Spotify. This song was teased in a very early preview video for the show, but hearing it in full gave deeper clarity into the context of the lyrics and who this new Cinderella is. My growing excitement for the show led me to a Twitter post  from last month in which the extraordinarily talented Carrie Hope Fletcher  performed another song from the show entitled "Far Too Late," which is a complementary opposite to "Bad Cinderella" in terms of tone. Hearing both of these songs gave me a more complete image of what to expect when the theater doors will open again to

Magic Lamp was the last visual novel I completed in the Dress Up! Time Princess smartphone app  and will likely be my last one, at least for a while. This app is extremely addictive and time-consuming. If you download it, be sure not to start new stories lightly. Take your time with them. Don't attempt to do three stories at once like I did. The Magic Lamp novel contains two chapters and takes about as much time to go through as Queen Marie , which is a little over a month. This novel stands apart from the others in the game because of its Arabian setting. Similar to  Swan Lake , the story begins as a gender-bent retelling of "Aladdin,"  complete with similar-looking characters and costumes, but it goes in an unexpected direction by the end of the first chapter. Magic Lamp reveals secrets about the characters' pasts that are very different from the fairy tale or Disney interpretation. Players who enter the world of Magic Lamp assume the role of Gina, a slave girl who

The biggest princess news today is that Disney released their first teaser trailer for Raya and the Last Dragon , their next female-driven animated feature that is slated for release in March 2021. Early interviews  have hinted that Maya might be joining the Disney Princess line as an adventuresome  daughter of the village chief . The trailer does not look anything like a Disney Princess movie from eras past, but it does follow the newer trope  of princesses who fight, wear pants, and rebel against society . In other words, it's an action movie that's trying to mooch off the popularity of the Disney Princess brand at the same time. I don't know what to make of these "princess" movies that no longer contain any of the things we love about princesses. However, it doesn't look like a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, the animation in the teaser was stunning. It just doesn't look like the princess movie that it is implied to be. The begin

Queen Marie is the first visual novel that players can unlock in the Dress Up! Time Princess smartphone game app. It is the most user-friendly story in the game, but that doesn't mean it's easy to complete! It is the polar opposite of Swan Lake  with dynamic story branches that shift based on your choices and a myriad of possible endings. It also has the largest number of characters to bond with, although only two of them are viable love interests. The game allows you to play as Marie Antoinette from the perspective of a modern girl who is aware of her gruesome fate and has the ability to alter history, similar to the anime My Next Life as a Villainess . The interactive visual novel also allows you to unlock a full closet of extravagant French colonial-style gowns and wigs. Queen Marie gives Dress Up! Time Princess players the opportunity to experience the luxurious lifestyle of the pre-revolution French monarchy while making decisions that can alter history and potentially pr

I already wrote a general review of the smartphone game app  Dress Up! Time Princess , but each visual novel within the game is so intricate and time-consuming that it warrants its own review. Immediately after I reviewed this game, I learned that it was about to release a new story based on the classic fairy tale ballet "Swan Lake," which is even more relevant to my blog than the other available stories since this is the only one so far that allows you to play as an actual princess. It is the shortest of the visual novels in the game (not counting side stories) with two potential love interests and three distinct "good" endings. It has fewer dress options than the other stories, but the ones in this book were some of my favorites. The only thing I didn't like was how much extra work was required to make them, which was probably intended to compensate for its length. In order to incentivize its players to participate in its visual novels, Dress Up! Time Princes